


Truth Be Told

by drugdog



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-07
Updated: 2014-10-07
Packaged: 2018-02-20 06:28:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2418455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drugdog/pseuds/drugdog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Yeah, we all are, Gene," he responded, inclining his head some. "We’re all gonna go home and pretend none of this ever happened."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Truth Be Told

**Author's Note:**

> Not exactly the classiest work for the first one in a ship tag, but hey.

"Stayin' warm, Toye?" Gene mumbled, pulling himself over the last few inches by his elbows dug into the snow. He wasn't watching the line this time, and Gene caught a glimpse of Guarnere, curled into himself with his knees drawn up to his chest.

Toye glanced up at him, putting a cigarette to his lips. He was slouched against the wall of his foxhole, an arm thrown over his chest. "Just changed my socks," he said. "Cigarette?"

"No, thank you," he said, "I really oughta be-"

"Never got to thank you properly for those boots, Doc." Toye set the heel of his hand to his knee and shook the ashes from the end of his smoke.

"Don't need to," Gene said, shifting so less snow would melt into his jacket before the night was over. Toye must've caught it. He gestured at him with his free hand.

"Come on. You're doin' your night rounds. You can take a break. Promise I won't wake up Bill so he can pester you about his gonorrhea," Toye said. Gene frowned. Most men in the camp found Guarnere's plight amusing, a serves-you-right sort of thing, but Gene was disappointed that it was another thing he couldn't fix.

Gene put it out of mind and slipped under the cover of the foxhole. Frostbite set in overnight, so no one who didn't have it the day before should have it at night. He settled down, knees pressed together, up against his body, because, unless it was the giant one Skip and Penkala had made themselves, foxholes were not made for three men. Toye leaned forward a couple inches, as if he was about to do something. And then it clicked. Toye being rude to him. Avoiding eye contact.

"I’m gettin' married," Gene said, blinking at him. He wouldn't say, "I like ladies," because that wasn't completely true- men caught his interest from time to time, not that he had ever acted on it. He wouldn't say, "I'm not interested," because he could be wrong in his assumption, and he wasn't sure he wasn't. He could just be sharing something personal, as men in war often did.

He could see the whites of Toye's eyes when he rolled them- unless he was just looking up, could see trails of grey smoke twisting into the air when he pulled his cigarette from his mouth.

"Yeah, we all are, Gene," he responded, inclining his head some. "We’re all gonna go home and pretend none of this ever happened."

He could leave. He could leave and spend the night praying for Toye to be forgiven of whatever sins he wanted to commit.

But, if he were to be honest with himself, he wanted to commit them too. For curiosity's sake. He shifted forward to his knees, a subtle way to lean in closer.

Toye took the hint. He pressed forward until their faces were a sparing inch or two apart. Gene would've taken initiative had their helmets not clicked together when he tried. Toye reached up, cautious, to Gene's head. He carded his fingers through his hair and let his helmet fall into his other hand, setting it on the dirt.

"Thanks for the boots, Doc," he mumbled against his mouth with a hint of what could've been laughter. Toye stubbed his cigarette out in the cold dirt, glanced over at Guarnere, and kissed him the second he looked back again.

Gene suppressed a gasp. The feeling of lips on his was foreign. The last time he remembered, and it was hardly a memory anymore, was when he saw his bride-to-be in the time leading up to D-Day.

"It’s bad luck, Eugene," Vera said to him when he playfully set a hand on the white box that held her dress. Her eyes were bright and her smile brighter. She leaned up and pressed their lips together as a kind of distraction, sighed into his mouth.

She smelled sweet, flowery, and her lips were soft and warm under his. She had gentle, dark curls for him to tentatively run his hand over- he couldn’t press too hard for fear of messing it up and getting reprimanded. Her hips were curved, and there had been something on her chest for him to press against.

The color and curls of their hair was where the similarities between his Vera and Toye ended.

He came back to the cold of Bastogne to his hand on the back of Toye’s neck, brushing against soft, short hairs, and a gentle tease of teeth on his lower lip. He tasted like smoke from cheap Chelsea cigarettes, lips chapped and cool. Dried blood and caked dirt covered him, giving off a different scent than Vera's perfume.

Toye set an open hand against his hip, his touch barely there. He pressed harder when Gene opened his mouth more against him.

Gene couldn't deny he felt awkward. It was his first time kissing a man, but he doubted it was the same for Toye- he led him smoothly until Gene's fingers dug into Toye's neck and their bodies were pressed together. By then, he picked up enough to find his way.

Toye pushed him back with a hand on his shoulder. His breath was less even than it had been. "Do you want," he trailed off. "What do you want?"

"I don't know," Gene answered after a pause.

"Tell me when to stop, then," Toye said, and reached down. He unbuttoned layers in a business-like way. He supposed that was the only way to do it, especially in a foxhole between two men. What they were doing was far from lovemaking, as he would do with a woman. It would be over quick, it would be undignified in the dirt. Gene shuddered and kissed him when he felt the first touch of Toye's cold hand on him.

Gene's fingers slid up to catch in the longer part of Toye's hair. He broke away to rest his forehead against Toye's neck, holding back pants with teeth digging into his lip. Toye ground up against him, near the juncture of his leg and hip, and brought him off with a soft noise in the back of his throat and a few flicks of his wrist. Gene tugged at his hair when he came, and that seemed to get Toye off. He leaned back after a moment with a shaky sigh, wiping his hand on his trousers.

He tucked himself away and glanced at the rosary in his pocket, nestled beside a letter from Vera and the letter back that he hadn't had a chance to mail yet. Toye followed his eyes and reached a hand up to touch. Of course he knew what was there- some of it, anyway. All the Catholic men in the company tended to keep their rosaries in their chest pocket opposite their side of honor.

"God ain't watching, if that's what you're worried about." Toye’s voice was no more than a whisper, and he strained to hear it.

"Why d'you say that?" he asked, focusing on Toye’s pale fingers on his chest. The forest had turned them all whiter than a fish's belly.

He felt Toye’s eyes on his face, and he looked at him. There was a certain intensity in them, different from the kind he'd seen when he told him he wasn't coming off the line. "I say that 'cause there's no way in hell a righteous man like him would let us be sent here."

"Of course," Gene said. He shifted away, feeling something strange in his stomach. Toye was straight to the point, and the denial of there being a God was sudden enough to throw him. "Good night, Toye."

“Good night, Doc," he replied, and didn't stop him when he wriggled out from under the cover of the foxhole onto the freshly fallen snow.

He prayed that night, under the stars in his foxhole, for the both of them. And, truth be told, in the days that followed, after only Toye’s leg was left overseas, Gene considered that he might have been right about God.


End file.
